The Land of Thor

Somewhat akin to this is the affection with which a traveler in a foreign land regards every mountain, tree, or flower that reminds him of his own country. The most pleasant parts of my experiences of mountain scenery are those that most resemble similar experiences at home. Some suggestion or hint of a familiar scene has often caused me to enjoy what would otherwise perhaps have attracted no particular attention. I remember once, while traveling in Brazil, near the Falls of Tejuca, some very pleasant scenes of early life came suddenly to mind, without any thing that I could perceive at the moment to give rise to such a train of thought. The aspect of the country was different from any I had ever seen before; and it was not till I discovered a bunch of violets close by my feet that I became aware that it was a familiar perfume which had so mysteriously carried me back to by-gone days. On another occasion, when at sea in the Indian Ocean, after many dreary months of absence from home, I one day accidentally found in the pocket of an old coat a paper of fine-cut chewing tobacco. With what delight I grasped the glittering treasure and applied it to my nose can only be conceived by a true lover of the weed – I speak not of your voracious chewers, who masticate this delectable narcotic as if it were food for the stomach instead of nutriment for the soul, but of the genuine devotee, who can appreciate the divinest essence, the rarest delicacies of tone and touch, the most exquisite shades of sentiment in this wondrous weed. What a luxury, after months of dreary longing – what an oasis in the desert of life! No attar of roses could be sweeter than that paper of fine-cut. I played with it – just titillating the nostrils – for hours before I dared to descend to the coarse process of chewing. And then – ah heavens! can mortal mixture ever equal that first chew again! How bright and beautiful the world looked! What happy remembrances I reveled in all that day, of serenades, and oyster-suppers, and pretty girls, and a thousand other fascinations of early youth, all of which grew out of a paper of fine-cut.

My experiences in Sweden were even more delightful in this respect than in Russia. At Stockholm I saw drunken men every day, and at Gottenburg it was the prevailing trait. The trouble was to see a man who was not laboring under a pressure of bricks in his hat. On one occasion I must have seen in the course of a single afternoon several hundred reeling home in the highest possible condition of ecstasy – either that, or the streets were so badly paved, and the roads so devious and undulating, that they made people stagger to keep straight. It was on the occasion of a fair, and may perhaps have been an exception to the general rule. One thing is certain – it looked very natural, and made me cotton wonderfully to these good people. There was something really homelike in a reeling, staggering crowd – their shouts and uproarious songs, their boozy faces and tobacco-stained months. Every body seemed to be on a regular “bender.” The only point of difference between the Swedish and the California “bender” was in the way the boys hugged and kissed the peasant-girls; but even in this respect a similitude may sometimes be found in the vicinity of the Indian Reservations, where I have seen Digger damsels treated quite as affectionately. However, it was all right, so long as both parties were willing. I rather liked the Gottenburg custom myself – as a spectator, of course.

My last and perhaps most agreeable experience connected with the pleasures of sympathy occurred in Norway, on the road from Christiania to Trondhjem. With profound humiliation I make the confession that I have never yet been able to eradicate a natural passion for tobacco. Once, after reading the Rev. Dr. Cox’s terrific book on the Horrors of Tobacco, in which it was conclusively shown that a single drop of the oil of this noxious weed put upon a cat’s tongue killed the cat, I resolved to master this vicious propensity for poison. For six months I neither smoked, snuffed, nor chewed. But it came back somehow. Care, I think, revived it, and every body knows that care, as well as tobacco, killed a cat. A man might as well be killed one way as another. We must all eat our peck of dirt, and in some shape or other swallow our peck of poison. One learned gentleman proves that tobacco is poison; another, that coffee and tea are equally fatal; another, that meat is no better, and so on; our food and drink are pretty much composed of poison, so that we are constantly killing ourselves, and the result is, we die at last. Still, it is marvelous how long some people survive all these deadly stimulants; how fat and hearty the Germans are in spite of their meerschaums; how wonderfully the French survive their strong coffee; how the Russians deluge their stomachs with hot tea and yet still live; how the English get over their porter and brown stout; and how long it takes the various poisons to which the various nations of the earth are addicted to produce any sensible diminution in the population. Sometimes I am inclined to think people would die if they never ate a particle of any thing – either food or poison. It seems to be one of those debts that we incur on coming into the world, and can only discharge by going out of it.

All of which leads you gradually to the main point – my experience in Norway. First, however, I must tell you that on my arrival in Europe, not being able to find a plug of genuine Cavendish, I was forced to satisfy the cravings of this morbid appetite by nibbling bad cigars. But a new difficulty soon became manifest – there was not a spot in all Germany where it was possible to get rid of a quid without attracting undue attention. No man likes to be stared at as an outlaw against the recognized decencies of life. One may smoke cigars under a lady’s nose, dress like a popinjay, or kiss his bearded friend in most Continental cities, but he must not chew tobacco, because it is considered a barbarous and filthy habit. He may guzzle beer, take snuff, and wear dirty shirts, but if he would avoid reproach as an unclean animal he must abandon his quids. Now, as a general rule, I dislike to violate public sentiment, or inconvenience people with whom I associate. If they are nonsensical and inconsistent in their notions, I agree with them for the sake of harmony, if not for politeness. Nothing pleases me better than to annoy an Englishman by doing every thing that he most dislikes, because he makes it a point to be disagreeable and unmannerly; carries his nationality wherever he goes, and it does me good to furnish him with material for criticism. Out of pure good nature, I meet him half way; chew and spit that he may grumble, and put my legs over the back of the nearest chair to see him enjoy a good hearty fit of disgust, and talk loud that he may find material for ill-natured reflections on American manners – all of which, I know, is exactly what obliges him. It affords him such undeniable grounds for the depreciation of others, and the indulgence of his own weak vanity!

In like manner I obliged my German friends, who, however, are altogether different in their exactions, and only require Americans to drop all their uncivilized habits, and become like themselves – quiet, decent, and respectable old fogies. Therefore I obeyed the laws, doffed my savage California costume, quit whisky, took to beer, avoided all passages of tenderness toward the female sex, and herded mostly with men. For a time, however, I held on to my beloved quid of cigar. It was such a solace in the midst of all these privations! But, alas! I had to give that up too; there was not a spot in all Germany suitable for the purpose of expectoration! The floors of the houses are so dreadfully clean – not a piece of carpet bigger than a rug to sit upon; the porcelain stoves so inaccessible; the windows always shut; every nook and corner blazing with little ornaments; the lady of the house so severely conscious of every movement; even the little earthen pans near the stove, filled with white sand nicely smoothed over to represent salt-cellars – the ostensible spittoons of the establishment – staring one in the face with a cold, steady gaze amounting to a positive prohibition – no, the thing was impossible! I saw plainly that a good, old-fashioned squirt of tobacco-juice would ruin such a country as this, where every room in every house was inimical to the habit, and every speck of ground throughout the length and breadth of the land adapted to some useful or ornamental purpose. Why, sir, I assure you that in the little duchy of Nassau – where it is said the grand-duke is unable to exercise his soldiers at target-shooting without obtaining permission to place the target in some neighboring state – I found the garden-walks and public roads so fearfully clean, every leaf and twig being swept up daily, and preserved to manure the duchy, that during a pedestrian tour of three days I was absolutely ashamed to spit any where. There was no possible chance of doing it without expunging a soldier or a policeman, or disfiguring the entire province. The result was, between tobacco-juice, salt water, iron water, sulphur water, soda-water, and all other sorts of water that came out of the earth from Brunnens of Nassau, I got home as thin as a snake, and was forced to deny myself even the poor consolation of a Frankfort cigar. So matters went on for nearly a year. I became a morose and melancholy man. This will account for all the bitter and ill-natured things I said of the Germans in some of my sketches, every word of which I now retract.

But to come to the point of the narrative. In the due course of a vagabond life, after visiting Russia and Sweden, I found myself one day on the road from Lillehammer to the Dorre Fjeld in Norway. I sat in a little cariole – an old peasant behind. The scenery was sublime. Poetry crept over my inmost soul. The old man leaned over and said something. Great heavens! What a combination of luxuries! His breath smelled of whisky and tobacco. I was enchanted. I turned and gazed fondly and affectionately in his withered old face. Two streams of rich juice coursed down his furrowed chin. His leathery and wrinkled mouth was besmeared with the precious fluid; his eyes rolled foolishly in his head; he hung on to the cariole with a trembling and unsteady hand; a delicious odor pervaded the entire man. I saw that he was a congenial soul – cottoned to him at once – grasped him by the hand – swore he was the first civilized human I had met in all my travels through Europe – and called upon him, in the name of the great American brotherhood of chewers, to pass me a bite of his tobacco. From that moment we were the best of friends. The old man dived into the depths of a greasy pocket, pulled out a roll of black pigtail, and with joy beaming from every feature, saw me tear from it many a goodly mouthful. We talked – he in Norwegian, I in a mixture of German and English; we chewed; we spat; we laughed and joked; we forgot all the discrepancies of age, nativity, condition, and future prospects; in short, we were brothers, by the sublime and potent free-masonry of tobacco. All that day my senses were entranced. I saw nothing but familiar faces, gulches, cañons, bar-rooms, and boozy stage-drivers; smelt nothing but whisky and tobacco in every flower by the wayside; aspired to nothing but Congress and the suffrages of my fellow-citizens. I was once again in my own, my beloved California.

“Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam,His first, best country ever is at home.”

CHAPTER XIX.

CIVILIZATION IN RUSSIA

It may be a little startling to set out with the general proposition that Russia is not only very far from being a civilized country, but that it never can be one in the highest sense of the term. The remark of Peter the Great, that distance was the only serious obstacle to be overcome in the civilization of Russia, was such as might well be made by a monarch of iron will and unparalleled energy, at whose bidding a great city arose out of the swamps of Courland, where Nature never intended a city to stand. But the remark is not true in point of fact. Distance can be annihilated, or nearly so; and although Peter the Great was probably aware of that fact, he might well have reasoned that facility of intercommunication is not so much the cause as the result of civilization. The wilderness may be made to blossom as the rose through human agency, but it can only be done by divine permission. I think that permission has been withheld in the case of a very considerable portion of Russia. No human power can successfully contend against the depressing influences of a climate scarcely paralleled for its rigor. Where there are four months of a summer, to which the scorching heats of Africa can scarcely bear a comparison, and from six to eight months of a polar winter, it is utterly impossible that the moral and intellectual faculties of man can be brought to the highest degree of perfection. There must, of course, always be exceptions to every general rule; but even in the dark and bloody history of Russia we find that the exceptions of superior intelligence and enlightenment have been chiefly confined to those who availed themselves of the advantages afforded by more temperate climes. Peter himself, the greatest of the Czars, and certainly the most gifted of his race in point of intellect, perfected his education in other countries, and in all his grand enterprises of improvement availed himself of the intellect and experience of other races. Every important improvement introduced into Russia during his reign was the product of some other country, executed under foreign supervision. This, perhaps, more than any thing else, may be said to afford the most striking evidence of the enlarged and progressive character of his mind. Yet the very same practice has been followed to a greater or less extent by all his successors, and still, with the exception of a railroad built by Americans, a telegraph system, a few French fashions, and a movement professing to have for its object the emancipation of the serfs, the country, beyond the limits of the sea-port districts and those parts bordering on the States of Germany, has advanced but little toward civilization since the reign of Peter.

With such a vast extent of territory, and such a variety of climates as it must necessarily embrace, it may seem rather a broad assertion to say that climate can be any obstacle to Russian civilization; but let us glance for a moment at the general character of the country. Between the sixtieth and seventy-eighth degrees of north latitude, embracing a considerable portion of European and Asiatic Russia, the winters are exceedingly long and severe, the summers so short that but little dependence can be placed upon crops. The greater part of this region consists of lakes, swamps, forests of pine, and extensive and barren plains. The mines of Siberia may be regarded as the most valuable feature in this desolate region. The production of flax and hemp in the province of Petersburg, and the lumber products of the forests which are accessible to the capital, give some importance to such portions as border on the southern and European limit of this great belt; but its general features are opposed to agricultural progress. Whatever of civilization can exist within it must be of forced growth, and be maintained under the most adverse circumstances. South of this, between the fifty-fifth and sixtieth degrees of latitude, comes a still wider and more extensive region, comprising St. Petersburg, Riga, Moscow, Smolensk, and a portion of Irkutsk and Nijni Novgorod. Here the summers are longer and the winters not quite so severe; but a large portion of the country consists of forests, sterile plains, and extensive marshes, and much of it is entirely unfit for cultivation. The European portions are well settled, and corn, flax, and hemp are produced wherever the land is available, and large bands of cattle roam over many parts of the country. In its general aspect, however, considering the duration and severity of the winters, and the large proportion of unavailable lands, I do not think it can ever become very productive in an agricultural point of view. Between fifty and fifty-five degrees latitude, embracing the valley of the Volga, is a more favored region, abounding in fertile lands, and the summers are longer, but the winters are still severe, especially in the eastern portions. From latitude forty-three to fifty, embracing portions of Kief, the Caucasus, and other southern possessions of the empire, the winters are comparatively temperate, and the summers warm and long; but here, again, a great portion of this country consists of mountains, arid plains, and deserts, and it is subject to extreme and terrible droughts. Here is a vast extent of territory, comprising about one hundred and sixty-five degrees of longitude and thirty-five of latitude, which contains within its limits a greater variety of bad climates, and a greater amount of land unavailable for any purposes of human life, than any equal compass of territory upon the globe, if we except Africa, which is at least doubtful. Within the limits of this vast, and, for the most part, inhospitable region, we find nearly all the races who, as far back as the history of mankind dates, have been the most addicted to predatory wars, and the indulgence of every savage propensity growing out of an untamable nature – Tartars, Cossacks, gipsies, Turks, Circassians, Georgians, etc., and the Russians proper, whose wild Sclavonic blood contains very nearly all the vices and virtues that circulate through the veins of all these races, besides many enterprising and unscrupulous traits of character to which the inferior tribes could never aspire. Here we have a mixed population, estimated in 1856 at seventy-one millions, including North American possessions and tributary tribes, a great part of it composed of totally incongruous elements, and with a variety of religions, embracing about nine millions of Roman, Armenian, and irregular Greek Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Israelites, and Buddhists – the national creed being the Greco-Russe, which, it is estimated, is professed by about fifty millions of the inhabitants, including, of course, infants and young children, and many others who know nothing about it. To keep all these incongruous elements in order, and provide against foreign invasion, requires a standing army of 577,859 troops “for grand operations,” as the last almanac expresses it, besides various corps de reserve, and a navy of 186 from steamers, 41 large sailing vessels, and numerous gun-boats and smaller vessels, in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the White Sea, and the Sea of Azof. More than seven eighths of these are frozen up and totally unavailable for six months every year. It is estimated that, after allowing for the forces necessary to protect the home possessions of the empire, of which Russian Poland is the most troublesome, the number of troops that can be brought into active offensive operation does not, under ordinary circumstances, exceed two hundred thousand men, and it must be obvious, considering that Russia has but little external sea-board, and must submit to the rigors of a climate which locks up the best part of her navy at least half of every year, that she can never attain any great strength as a naval power. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that while this great nation, or combination of nations, is, from the very nature of its climate and topography, almost impregnable to foreign invasion, it can never become a very formidable power at any great distance from home; and there are considerations connected with its form of government, and the difficulty or impracticability of changing it, which, in my opinion, forms an insuperable obstacle to the education of the people, and such general dissemination of intelligence among the masses as will entitle them to take the highest rank among civilized nations. Nor does the history of Russia during past ages afford much encouragement for a different view of the future. Democracy existed for several centuries before the country became subject to despotic rule, and from the ninth to the fifteenth century the aristocracy possessed no hereditary privileges; the offices of state were accessible to all, and the peasantry enjoyed personal liberty. It was not until the reign of Peter the Great – the high-priest of civilization – that the serfs became absolute slaves subject to sale, with or without the lands upon which they lived. In respect to political liberty, there has been little, if any advance since the reign of the Empress Catherine, who accorded some elective privileges to certain classes of her subjects in the provinces, and reduced the administration of the laws to something like a system. The absurd pretense of Alexander I. in according to the Senate the right of remonstrating against imperial decrees is perfectly in keeping with all grants of power made by the sovereigns of Russia to their subjects. There is not, and can not be in the nature of things, a limited despotism. As soon as the subjects possess constitutional rights at all binding upon the supreme authority, it becomes another form of government. The great difficulty in Russia is, that the sovereign can not divest himself of any substantial part of his power without adding to that of the nobles and the aristocracy, who are already, by birth, position, and instinct, the class most to be feared, and most inimical to the process of freedom. It is not altogether the ignorance of the masses, therefore, that forms an insuperable barrier to the introduction of more liberal institutions, but the wealth, intelligence, and influence of the higher classes, who neither toil nor spin, but derive their support from the labor of the masses whom they hold in subjection. It is natural enough they should oppose every reform tending to elevate these subordinate classes upon whom they are dependent for all the powers and luxuries of their position. Admitting that the present emperor may have a leaning toward free institutions, and possibly contemplate educating forty or fifty millions of his subjects to run him into the Presidency of Russia, it is obvious that the path is very thorny, and that the position will be well earned if ever he gets there. But these acts of sovereign condescension, although they read very well in newspapers, and serve to entertain mankind with vague ideas of the progress of freedom, are generally the essence of an intense egotism, and amount to nothing more than cunning devices to subvert what little of liberty their subjects may be likely to extort from them by the maintenance of their rights. I do not say that Alexander II. is governed by these motives, but, having no faith in kings or despots of any kind, however good they may be, I can see no reason why he should prove any better than his predecessors. Upon this point let me tell you an anecdote. You are aware, perhaps, that the Finns have a Constitution which allows them to do what they please, provided it be pleasing to the emperor. Like the ukase of Alexander I. to the Senate, and all similar grants of authority, it is not worth the parchment upon which it is written, and in its practical operation is no better than a practical joke. The Finns, however, are a brave, simple minded, and rather superstitious people, and take some pride in this Constitution. It is the ghost of liberty at all events, and they indulge in the hope that some day or other it will fish up the dead body. Not more than a few weeks ago, a small party of these worthy people, on their way to Stockholm for purposes of business or pleasure, were arrested and put in prison by the Russian authorities on the supposition that they differed from the emperor in his interpretation of this liberal Constitution, and were going to Sweden to lay their grievances before their old compatriots. It is quite possible that this was true. I heard complaints made when I was in Helsingfors that there was quite a difference of opinion on the subject. But it is a marvel how they could misunderstand their right under the Constitution, when there is a strong military force stationed at the principal cities of Finland to make it intelligible. So thought the emperor or his subordinates, and put them in jail to give them light. The point in the transaction which strikes me most forcibly is, that a power like that of Russia, after having wrested the province of Finland from Sweden, with an army and navy far inferior to what she now possesses, should be afraid that a handful of Finns should tell a pitiful tale to the King of Sweden, and prevail upon him to take their country back again. If this be the freedom granted under the free Constitution of Finland, the restraints upon personal liberty must be pretty stringent in dependencies where no Constitutions at all exist.